


Lost In A Memory

by Gottabeelove



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 05:49:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gottabeelove/pseuds/Gottabeelove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If love was a vampire’s greatest weakness, Caroline was his. He may have taken away her memories, but no amount of alcohol could take away his. AU - told in 1920 and current day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ballad of Love and Hate

**Chapter One - Ballad of Love and Hate**

**_Hate sits alone on the hood of his car  
_ ** **_without much regard on to the moon or the stars  
lazily killing the last of a jar of the strongest stuff you can drink.   
Hate gets home luck to still be alive.   
He screams o’er the sidewalk and into the drive.   
The clock in the kitchen says 2:55, and the clock in the kitchen is slow. _ **

_His gaze rose to the door when she walked in, as did every other man’s in the room, a fact that was not lost on the blonde for a moment as a smirk formed on her lips.  The closest few stammered to buy her a drink or twirl her around on the dance floor, but she blew them all off in her haste to get to the bar and to one man in particular, pressing a kiss to his cheek as she sat down next to him at the bar, stealing a sip from his bourbon. Klaus recognized them. He had never met them in person per se but he had seen pictures.  In his hunt to exact his revenge on Katherine, the Salvatore siblings had inevitably come into play, the bubbly blonde younger sister who had quickly become Katherine’s best friend and her overprotective older brother who fell head over heels for the doppelganger on the run.   What he was surprised to see was them both alive. It was clear that Katherine had turned them both during her time in Mystic Falls, otherwise they would be long gone by now.  He had to admit looking at her now, the pictures had done the young blonde no justice.  Sure she had been beautiful when she was standing in the archaic 1800s garb in the photos, but seeing her now, blonde curls pinned back in a bun, a few curls hanging loosely to frame her face, short, black, flapper dress that hugged her curves in the best possible way.  It was all he could to not to groan out loud as she leaned over the bar to flag down the bartender, his fate sealed as he watched her order a whiskey as opposed to one of the much more girlish drinks he was expecting her to order._

_He set his drink down on the table and quickly stepped away from the booth, leaving Rebekah and their companions for the evening calling after him.  He had seen enough of this blonde to know that he wanted to know more, so he began by leaning against the bar and ordering a drink, listening for an opportunity to jump into the conversation.  He took a lazy sip from his scotch, ignoring the brunette to his left trying to catch his attention completely._

_“Blondie, no,” Damon shook his head.  Klaus couldn’t help, but smirk as the blonde stomped her foot and pouted, which only seemed to spur on Damon more._

_“I just want to see it.  Just once, it’s been over fifty years, no one will recognize us,” Caroline whispered angrily, but Klaus, of course, picked up on it.  “I just need to see it.”_

_“Caroline, no.  It’s a death wish.  Fifty years is nowhere near long enough.  You don’t think those stories have passed down.  It’s barely been a generation.  Don’t be stupid,” he said, sternly, using the older brother voice that rarely made an appearance since they had arrived in Chicago.  “We’ve only been here for a few months.  Just settle, Caroline.  We’re safe here.” His voice lowered, tipping his head back to swallow the contents of his bourbon glass in one gulp, before once again meeting Caroline’s disappointed glance.  Klaus had to smirk, the girl had the perfect lips for a pout and the tenacity not to back down. “Give it ten years, Blondie, then we will_  talk _about going back there.”_

_“Fine,” she all but hissed, tossing back her own drink.  Something she had clearly learned from watching her older brother.  Klaus was finally unable to hold the chuckle that had been growing in his throat back, drawing both Damon and Caroline’s attention to him.  “Can I help you?” Caroline asked, raising an eyebrow cautiously._

_He marveled at her, it was rare he met a vampire who was unaware of who was, led alone one that spoke to him so harshly, it only spurred on his growing interest in her, “Klaus.” He extended his hand to her.   “Can I buy you a drink?”_

_Caroline stared at it for a moment, before her eyes flicked back up to his, making no attempt to shake it. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask brother.  He seems to think he’s my keeper these days,” she scoffed, shooting a daggered look back at Damon before storming out of the bar._

_Damon could not help but chuckle, tapping his glass on the bar to get another shot, “Sorry, mate.  You’d have better luck with a nun.” He patted Klaus’s shoulder, tossing back his shot as quickly as it was placed on the bar.   Grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair, he walked out of the bar to chase after Caroline, leaving Klaus to walk back to his booth in the air of his defeat._

|Lost in a Memory|

He bitterly picked up the scotch sitting in front of him and downed it in a flash, trying to figure out why he was sitting at the only bar in this horrid town knowing there was a large possibility of running into her.  It was a sadomasochistic streak that ran deep in the old hybrid.  It didn’t take long for him to get his wish.  The blonde vampire came strolling in with the doppelganger and the witch on either side of her.  She scanned the room and stopped for a moment when her eyes fell upon him.  A small smirk formed on her lips as she caught him staring and for a split second he wondered it any part of her remembered in some unconscious, impossible way.  It faded much too quickly though, giving way to that of distain and hatred, but it was those little flickers of emotion that he held onto.  The moments when even his compulsion could not over power the habit of smiling when she saw him.  He needed to let that go if he was ever going to move on.  The thought made him chuckle.  If love was a vampire’s greatest weakness, Caroline was his.  Moving on from Caroline simply was not an option, which was why he killed things.  He did not blame Caroline for hating him.  She was happy here and he destroyed it. His father had once told him that he destroyed everything he touched and the words did not reign truer than when he applied them to Caroline.

In the three years since Caroline and Damon had arrived in Mystic Falls, they had built a life for themselves here.  Damon was in a constantly on-again-off-again relationship with the doppelganger and Caroline had settled into a mundane high school life that he couldn’t even begin to understand.  She had the world at her finger tips, but she was repeating the worst four years of most humans’ lives over and over again.  She had propelled herself into the high school hierarchy; head cheerleader, student body president, and the boyfriend.  Tyler was the vane of Klaus’s existence.  He wanted to shake her.  He did not understand how she could be as careless as to date someone who’s intent was to kill her even if it was only for one day a month.  Klaus had never shared well, even if she did not belong to him anymore, he still fumed every time he saw Tyler’s hands on  _his_  girl.  Truthfully, that was why he turned Tyler.  He had told everyone, including Rebekah, that it was simply proximity and opportunity.   Tyler had been the closest werewolf to him and he knew turning someone within their group would get him the best possible outcome, but part of him hoped they would not figure it out.  Tyler would be dead and he could get away without shouldering all of them blame.  Most of it would be on him, but there was a small part of Caroline that would have blamed Bonnie and the others for not being able to figure it out.  They turned out to be smarter than he thought they were and in the end, he inadvertently gave Caroline the opportunity to spend an eternity with Tyler. 

“Another scotch?” The Donovan boy asked from behind the bar.

“Just bring the bottle,” Klaus commented, shooting him a look that could have killed.  He brought the bottle to his lips, keeping his eyes fixed straight forward and not to the corner of the bar where Caroline had just greeted his first hybrid with a kiss.  It barely registered when someone sat down next to him. 

“I have to ask.  Why do you do this to yourself?” Damon asked.  He was famous for his self-loathing and destructive habits, but what Klaus was doing was a whole new level of self-torture in his opinion. 

“How long did you wait after Katherine?” Klaus challenged, deciding against answering Damon’s exact question.  They were not exactly friends, it was not more than a few months ago that they hybrid had tried to kill Damon’s girlfriend and Damon had tried to kill him with the Bennett witch’s help.  He smirked grimly to himself at Damon’s lack of an answer.  “Exactly.” He brought the bottle to his lips once again, enjoying the burn in his throat.  

Damon took a deep breath, he was never one to formulate his words carefully, but things were different when it came to Caroline and that was something they were both painfully aware of.  Caroline’s involvement in any situation seemed to change the stakes for everyone involved, “I don’t like her with the dog either.  I don’t like knowing she could die if she pisses him off, but you know better than  _anyone_  how headstrong she is.  It’s pointless.  She doesn’t listen to me or even witchy.   She knows it’s dumb, but she does it to spite me.  I don’t want her hurt any more than you do, but there’s no talking her out of this.  Trust me, I’ve tried.  Blondie is on her own here.” Damon said before leaving Klaus to get drunk on his own before he returned to the brunette in the corner of the grill.

“ _What was that about? Why were you talking to Klaus, Damon?”_  he heard Elena asked.

“ _Don’t worry about it, princess.”_  He cut her off and Klaus took this as his cue to exit the bar.

The next morning, Klaus called Tyler over to his home.  His original plan that morning had been to kill him, but he came up with a much better plan.  He was going to test the hybrid bond.  See how far he could push Tyler’s obedience and test if there was a breaking point.  He needed to know what he could push his hybrids to do without compelling.  Loyalty was far better than compelled loyalty in Klaus’s book and Tyler seemed readily available to do whatever he bid of him. 

“You wanted to see me?” Tyler asked as he walked into the nearly constructed home behind Daniel. 

“Tyler, glad to see you here so quickly,” Klaus said, clasping his hands behind his back.  He had gotten good at this charade; pretending Tyler was the pride of his pack, his first success when truthfully, he would love nothing more than to rip the boys heart from his chest himself.  He could not help the smirk that formed on his lips at that satisfying thought, his hand wrapped around his beating heart before yanking it from the boy’s thoracic cavity.  He shook the thought away, more important matters were at hand and he needed to attend to them.  “I have a task for you.”

Tyler’s expression fell at the words.  He knew that Klaus’s ‘tasks’ were generally not anything he had any desire to do; he had learned that from personal experience.  “What?” he asked in haste, the primal anger taking over before he managed to reign himself back in.

“I want you to bite Caroline,” he said, the words not rolling off his tongue as easily as he thought they would.  He knew that no harm would actually come to his blonde.  If Tyler did listen to him, Klaus had every intention of saving her.  Even if his life would be easier without her in the world; her death would be his cure and his downfall all wrapped into a tiny blonde package and he would be lying if he said he was not tempted.  He could never go through with it though.

“What? No,” Tyler said firmly, just as Klaus had expected to.  “I’m not biting my girlfriend.  I’m not going to kill her.  No.” He stood his ground.

“Tyler, might I remind you that you are sired to me, you don’t have a choice.” He leaned against the back edge of the couch.  He watched the flashes of emotion wave over the boy’s face, it was amusing really.  The fight in his eyes, the confliction, and ultimately the submission, although he was quick to cover it with bravado and nervous anger.

“I’m not doing it,” he hissed before storming from the house. 

Klaus smirked, he did not need a witch to tell him what was going to happen next.  It was clear that regardless of how hard Tyler was trying to fight the need to impress his sire, the need was still present.  All there was left to do was to wait.  It was a test after all.  Whether Tyler passed or not was yet to be seen.  He was well aware of the terms that it would take in order to break or bypass a sire bond or even compulsion and to be honest, he did not think Tyler had what it took to do just that. 

By ten o’clock that evening, Klaus was beginning to question whether or not he had been wrong.  He was never wrong, but it had been well over twelve hours since he had made his demand of Tyler and he had still not received confirmation of the tasks completion.  He was beginning to pace a hole in the floor when his phone began to ring and he knew he had bet on the right horse.  He was surprised to see Damon’s name on the caller identification, but he answered none the less.  He opened his mouth to say hello, but before the words could get out, Damon hissed at him.

“ _I’m going to kill Lockwood, you want to help?”_

“On my way, Mate,” he chirped into the phone, much too happy given the current, but his test of the bond seemed to be paying off in his favor.  Grabbing his coat, he headed for the door and towards the Salvatore Boarding house to fix  _Tyler’s_  mistake.


	2. Look After You

**Chapter Two – Look After You**

**_If I don’t say this now, I will surely break as I’m leaving the one I want to take.  
Forgive the urgency but hurry up and wait.    
My heart has started to separate.    
There now, steady love, so few come and don’t go.    
Will you, won’t you be the one I always know?    
When I’m losing my control, the city spins around.    
You’re the only one who knows, you slow it down.    
I’ll look after you._ **

_Klaus was never one to take no for an answer, in fact it was not a word the vampire heard often if ever.  That’s precisely why he compelled the bartender at the bar to call him the second his pretty little blonde walked through the door to that bar.  Caroline had seemed too familiar with the bar to have simply walked in on a whim and sure enough, he was correct.  Two weeks went by without much of a whisper and then one night as Klaus prepared to leave his compelled brownstone for an evening of hunting, the phone rang._

_“This had better be important,” Klaus grumbled into the phone, pinning it between his head and shoulder as he fiddled with the cufflink on his shirt._

_“She’s here.” The line went dead.  Klaus slowly set the phone back on the cradle as he mentally tallied his options.  He was the most powerful vampire in the world and he was compelling bartenders to feed him information about this girl.  A silly, little, insignificant blonde who had done nothing but haunt his dreams and consume his thoughts since he first laid eyes on her.  This would not do.  He needed to do something about her.  He could use her.  He would head to the bar, get whatever information he could about Katherine out of her, and then he would dispose of her.  If she were dead, he would once again regain control of his thoughts.  Klaus liked control and if Caroline threatened that, then she would have to go, no matter how smooth her legs looked or how long her lashes appeared.  No silly little blonde was going to get in the way of his revenge._

_He smoothed his fingers through his hair before ducking out of the Gold Coast row home.  Smirking to himself at the stares from passersby as he walked down the snowy street in a thin dress shirt, he probably could have tried to fit in a little better, but he could not be bothered by human opinions.  Once he reached the small, hole-in-the-wall establishment, he stepped inside, scanning the room until he spotted the blonde he was searching for seated at the bar in a much more demure dress than he had seen her in the first time he had met her._

_“Fancy seeing you here,” he spoke, sliding into the stool next to her, his accent thick as he turned to the bartender, “Whiskey, neat,” he told him noticing Caroline roll her eyes out of the corner of his own._

_“Make that two,” she added, crossing and uncrossing her legs as she shifted away from him._

_“So no big brother bodyguard this evening..”_

_“Caroline,” she filled in the space, “And no, he made other arrangements this evening and I didn’t feel like spending the night pulling a pillow over my head to drown out the ungodly noises so I thought I would come here.”_

_He chuckled, her bluntness only proved to amuse him more.  “Well, I don’t blame you, I can’t say I would want to be anywhere near the house if my sister was doing something of an unsavory nature.” He shook his head, tossing some papers down on the counter to cover their drinks._

_Caroline opened her mouth to protest him paying for her drink, but quickly closed it again upon realizing she did not have any money on her.  Chicago was not a city up to date on their vervain, the need to carry money around had never been present there, but she could not exactly compel the bartender in front of the man sitting next to her.   She sighed, deciding just for this one drink she would allow him to keep her company.  “Thank you,” she finally forced out._

_“Klaus,” he added, unable to wipe the smirk from his lips._

_“Well, thank you for the drink, Klaus,” she repeated, looking over at him.  She raised an eyebrow as she saw the smirk that so proudly adorned his face.  It seemed to be a constant fixture, at least during the two times she had seen the man.  “So what made you think Damon was my brother?  We look nothing alike, he could have easily been my boyfriend or husband.  You seemed to jump to a rather interesting conclusion.”_

_“Lucky guess,” he lied, reaching for his glass and taking a long sip before diving into further explanation without giving away how much he did know about her.  He could tell by the look on her face she would not be satisfied with the answer he had given.  “I heard you two fighting, it didn’t exactly sound like a lover’s quarrel.”_

_Her eyes widened when he mentioned that he had overheard them fighting.  She had mentioned things that had not meant to be overheard.  Things that would not make any sense to someone who knew nothing of supernatural world, but if he knew anything at all about vampires, they had probably revealed themselves._

_He could read the panic written all over her face, deciding that now was as good a time as any to get the information he had come for.   His hands moved to cup her face gently, looking into her eyes.  “Tell me everything you know about Katherine Pierce and her whereabouts,” he commanded quietly, his eyes flickering with compulsion.  He waited patiently for her to begin spilling all of the intimate details of her experiences with Katherine, but Caroline seemed to be a never ending supply of surprises. She never seemed to do what he expected her to do.  Instead of divulging the information, she began to laugh, hysterically in fact.  The blonde did nothing but confuse him._

_“Are you new at this?” she asked once she had managed to calm the giggles, reaching for her drink.  Keeping her voice down, she turned to him once again.  “Vampire 101, you can’t compel other vampires.  How long have you been one?”_

_Klaus was baffled to say the least.  He had never encountered a vampire who his compulsion did not work on and there was only one solution.  She was on vervain, but the real question was why.  Why would a seemingly average vampire feel the need and endure the pain of ingesting vervain?  Clearly, there was more to the blonde than she let on.  He pondered her question for a moment, trying to decide what kind of answer he wanted to give her.  He could play into her assumption, go along with the charade that he was a baby vampire, it was almost a laughable accusation.  “About twelve hundred years,” he answered, deciding in this case, honesty might get him further than deception.  Losing the ability to simply compel her had thrown him for a moment, but he had landed on his feet, the wheels quickly turning in his head as he formatted a new plan._

_“Why do you want to know about Katherine?” she asked, her previous ferocity returning to her voice.  The smirk returned to his lips, she did not take long to bounce back at all and he admired that._

_“Katherine did something a long time ago and I have_ questions, _” he said, before adding as an afterthought, “Questions only Katherine can answer.”_

_“Well, unfortunately, you aren’t going to get those answers.  You are about sixty years too late on that one, I’m afraid.  Katherine was burned alive with about thirty other vampires in 1864.”  Klaus could detect a hint of sadness in her voice, but there was something else, something he could not quite put his finger on.  He knew that what she said was not true.  Katherine was very much still alive and well, gallivanting around the world in her never ending game of hide and go seek.  It was getting old really, chasing her around the world, narrowly missing her every time he got close, but catching her was inevitable.  Katherine was good at hiding, but he was better at seeking.  He was better at everything.  Despite the fact that Caroline was very much wrong about Katherine’s fate, something told him that she was telling the truth, at least her truth.  He got the feeling that Caroline had no idea her sire and would-be mentor was alive._

_“Well that’s unfortunate,” he said, simply._

_“Maybe I could fill in some of the blanks for you, but first I have some questions.” As he nodded in agreement to her request, she reached for her drink, taking a lazy sip of it as she formatted a list of questions in her head.  Caroline Salvatore was nothing if not thorough and if he was giving her free range to ask questions, she was going to milk it for all it was worth._

_“How about an answer for an answer?” he countered._

_“I think I can agree to those terms.” She nodded, trying to decide which of the many questions she had she would lead with.  “If you have really been a vampire for twelve hundred years, why would you try to compel me?  You should know better than that.”_

_“I’m a special kind of vampire.  I can compel other vampires,” he stated without offering much information.  Caroline was different, but he still preferred not to allow many others to become privy to his original status.  “Your turn, why can’t I compel you?”_

_“Well, assuming it’s the same reason some humans can’t be compelled, it’s because I’m on vervain.  I come from a town that’s been plagued by vampires since it’s founding. Vervain is a way of life and my brother and I decided a long time ago that we didn’t want to be slave to it’s power over us.  We’ve been drinking it every day since.  It doesn’t burn anymore going down, it can still hurt us, but it takes a lot.”_

_He was impressed; some vampires were unaware of just how much vervain could affect them, but Caroline and her brother seemed to be manipulating the system.  She continued to baffle and intrigue him.  She was smart and seemingly resourceful; he imagined that some of Katherine had rubbed off on the blonde during her time with her.  He had every intention of ending this evening disposing of her greyed body, but now he found himself enamored by her very existence.  This night was proving to be far different than he could have ever imagined._

|Lost in a Memory|

            “Who let you in?” Elena asked, an eyebrow arching as she looked at him incredulously.  Bonnie quickly joined in on the staring contest Elena had entered into with him before Damon waved his hand wanting to end this before it turned into a fight, not when his sister’s life was on the line.

            “I called him,” he offered up.  The two women’s confused expressions quickly turned to him, waiting for him to deliver some kind of explanation as to why he would call the homicidal hybrid to help during this situation.  “He’s fifteen hundred years old, I thought there might be a possibility that he knew how to fix this.”

            “And I do, but let’s begin with what happened, shall we?” Klaus asked, crossing his arms as he leaned into the doorway.

            “We were at the cemetery drinking with her.  She and Tyler went off in the woods..” Elena trailed off, not wanting to paint that picture for Damon.  “A few minutes later, we heard her scream and Tyler started yelling for us.  He took off as soon as we got to her-“

            “Like the little shit that he is,” Damon interrupted.

            “And why exactly were you drinking in a cemetery?  I know you all make up the complete list of things that go bump in the night, but don’t you think you are taking it a little far?” Klaus asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “Caroline hates her birthday, we were just trying to cheer her up,” Elena defended, shooting him a daggered look.

He mentally berated himself the second the words came out of her mouth, having completely forgotten it was Caroline’s birthday.  His hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose.  “So where is she now?  What condition is she in?”

            “ _Damon..”_  They all winced at the intruding voice that carried softly down the hallway. 

            “Go see for yourself,” Damon said grimly.  “Third door on your left up the stairs.  Bring her some blood.” He tossed him a blood bag before Klaus walked out of the room and headed up the stairs.  Finding his way up the stairs, he counted doors until he found the bedroom Damon had referred to, finding the door slightly ajar.  He pushed it open and took in her appearance.  She was pale and clammy, her body shivering under the covers, it was unlike anything he had seen before.  The large bed seemed to consume her tiny, frail body.  He hated seeing her like this.  He was quick to cross the room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and looking down at her.

            “Nik..” she whispered, her face lighting up a bit when she looked up at him.  He stared at her, more confused than he had ever been.  She hadn’t called him Nik since 1923, no one had.  Nik died the day he left her and Klaus was born.  The evil sadistic vampire that cared about nothing but making hybrids and tearing out the heart of anyone that dared to get in his way.  “You came,” she added, looking up at him like he was the sun and the moon, “I was worried you would get caught up with the werewolf problem on the Southside.”  That’s when it hit him.  Werewolf bites induced fever, bloodlust, aches, chills, and  _hallucinations._ He had a crucial decision to make.  A large part of him wanted to buy into the fantasy; to close the door and crawl into bed with her, hold her close like he had not been able to in nearly a century, but he knew he could not.  He could steal those moments for tonight, but that’s exactly they would be, stolen and meaningless.  They would be completely forgotten by the blonde the next morning and he would lose her all over again. 

            “I’m here,” he said simply, picking up a glass from the nightstand and refilling it with blood.  He briefly considered letting her bite his wrist and take his healing blood straight from the source, selfishly wanting to feel her lips on his skin.  Deciding against it, he bit into his wrist and allowed the blood to drip down into the glass.  “Drink this, Love.” He placed the glass into her hand and gently helped her sit up, sweeping the damp, blonde curls away from her face as she began to drink the blood.  “That a girl.” He set the glass back on the nightstand when she had finished, beginning to move from the bed before feeling a tiny hand wrap weakly around his wrist.

            “Don’t go,” she pleaded softly.  He sighed heavily, closing his eyes before leaning back against the headboard against his better judgment.  Looking down, he watched as the blonde head found his way to his chest wondering how he got himself into this situation. 

            Klaus waited until she fell asleep before carefully slipping out from beside her.  She hadn’t taken more than ten minutes to fall asleep, her body exhausted from the bite and healing process.  He closed the door behind him before walking back down to the stairs where Damon was waiting for him with an expectant look on his face.  “She’ll be fine by morning,” The Original informed him before pouring himself a glass of bourdon and dropping down into one of the stiff arm chairs.

            “What did you do?” Damon asked.

            “My blood cures werewolf bites,” he explained, examining the amber liquid in his glass before taking a long drink.  “Sometimes having me on call comes in handy.”

            “You weren’t exactly on call for me,” Damon pointed out, fixing his own glass.  “I still have to deal with Lockwood,” he all bit hissed, downing the contents of his glass as if they were water. 

            “Why don’t you let me?  I have the perfect solution really,” Klaus offered, the wheels already turning in his twisted mind. 

            Damon waved his hand, “Better she continue hating you than me.” The statement earned him a glare from the hybrid sitting across from him.  “Come on, don’t give me that look.  Your choices, not mine.” Damon held his hands up innocently before setting the now empty glass on the table.  “I have to go tell Bonnie and Elena to stop pacing holes in the floor.”

            Klaus watched him walk out of the room before leaning back into his chair, swirling the liquid around his glass once again.  The memory of blonde hair settling messily on his chest was still fresh in his mind and he was unable to shake it.  It was taking most of his resolve not to make his way back up those stairs to her bedroom and for an impulsive man that was difficult.  He sighed heavily, emptiness consumed his bitter heart and his thoughts wandered back to his eternal debate.  Tonight proved to give arguments for both sides.  He may have caused tonight’s actions, but they could have easily happened without his influence.  It always came back to the same question, was Caroline really safer without him or was he just torturing himself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Review :)

**Author's Note:**

> Please review :)


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